Rooney’s overtime winner lifts Devils over IceCaps

ST. JOHN’S, NL — In the first of back to back weekend games at St. John’s, the Albany Devils scored two third period goals to force overtime and ultimately beat the IceCaps, 3-2, Friday. Albany’s record improves to 31-23-1-1 and the IceCaps move to 24-23-7-1.

Charles Hudon struck first at 8:49 of the first period to give St. John’s the lead. Nikita Scherbak got the only assist on the play. After the Devils killed off a penalty, Appleby had a pass picked off by Yannick Veillux who then fed Mark MacMillan for an open net goal at 17:00 of the period.

After an uneventful second period, Ryan Kujawinski was able to get the Devils on the board at 2:03 of the third period off of a feed from Kevin Rooney to cut the lead in half. Jan Mandat earned the secondary assist. With under three minutes remaining in the final period, Karl Stollery shot the puck from the point and Ben Thomson was able to tip it in to tie the game at two. The goal came at 17:19 of the period and Stollery got the lone assist.

In overtime, Kevin Rooney was able to slip his way behind the St. John’s defenders and slide the puck in the net at 3:52 of the extra frame. Stollery got the assist on the game winning play.

Ken Appleby faced 34 shots and he turned away 32 of them to improve his record to 15-11-0-0. Charlie Lindgren faced 7 of his 26 shots in the overtime frame but allowed three goals to fall to 17-14-5.

The Devils and IceCaps will complete their two game series in St. John’s Saturday at 6:00 pm EST at Mile One Centre.